Auston Matthews returned after missing nine games due to an upper-back injury. The Toronto Maple Leafs star is still not quite back game-breaking self. Auston Matthews loves to score overtime goals for the Toronto Maple Leafs. The Maple Leafs only registered six shots through the first two periods while the New Jersey Devils posted 27, including a goal. The writing on the wall was that it was an off game for Toronto and they'd likely return home with another loss. However, Anthony Stolarz — who stopped 38 of 39 shots in the game — had a say. As did Pontus Holmberg, who scored the game-tying goal in the third period while shorthanded. So did Matthews, after registering four shots before his breakaway midway through overtime. The 27-year-old fought off Brett Pesce before beating Jacob Markstrom over the shoulder in tight for his ninth goal of the season. "It was hard to kind of settle down. So just try to get it up and over him," Matthews said following the win. "I mean, he's a big guy, takes up a lot of the net. So I was just kind of guessing he was going to go down and just try to lift it." After finding the back of the net, Matthews skated along the boards in celebration before pointing to someone behind the glass. That person could be former NHL defenseman PK Subban, who filmed Matthews' goal, and the point to the crowd which followed. "Hit the clutch," Subban wrote in the X (formerly Twitter) post. "Captain Clutch." In a photo posted by the team shortly after the win in New Jersey, it appears even more likely that Matthews was pointing to the former NHL defenseman following his goal. The overtime winner on Tuesday was Matthews' eighth point (four goals, four assists) in his last six games since returning from an upper-body injury that kept him out for nearly a month. It was also the forward's 13th overtime goal of his career, which puts him one overtime tally away from tying Mats Sundin's record (13) for most overtime goals in Maple Leafs history. "Yeah, that felt really good. I couldn't quite seem to find my spot there a couple times. But, yeah, I just tried to stick with it. And, I mean, like I said, the game was very ugly on our side for most of the games," Matthews said of his overtime winner. "So to squeak out this one, it's good to be back in the one column and, you know, we just want to continue that momentum and be better the next game.
